


Breakthrough

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s03e12 The Sound of Drums, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, M/M, Missing Scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-05
Updated: 2010-04-05
Packaged: 2017-10-08 17:44:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Suppose you're right," he said. "Suppose I'm just prejudiced."</i> - Missing scenes from <i>The Sound of Drums</i> and <i>Last of the Time Lords</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breakthrough

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Winter Companions 2010 Doctor/Jack Fest](http://community.livejournal.com/wintercompanion/91547.html). The prompts were: _According to Time Lord traditions, Jack's immortality is "wrong." But, then again, the Doctor has never been a traditional Time Lord. How does he get over his "prejudice" in order to get it on with Jack?_ and _Jack/Doctor first kiss (after "The Parting of the Ways")_.

**Part I: Dance to the Beat**

The Doctor poked at the laptop again. Still nothing new. He jumped up, ran a hand through his hair, began pacing the concrete floor of the abandoned warehouse.

Nothing new. Nothing new.

Waiting really wasn't his strong suit.

He slammed a hand down on the table; the laptop jumped.

He really needed to calm himself. But his mind was racing. His fingers tapped the rhythm of a Gallifreyan heartbeat against the chipped wooden table.

He wasn't alone any more.

He couldn't sense the Master - and really, why was that? there was something not right there - but he knew he was out there now. And the Doctor was having more and more trouble suppressing the desperate joy welling up in him.

Joy, despite everything.

He breathed in deeply despite the pervasive rotting smell.

Silent steps came up behind him. An abrupt, jarring cessation of movement - potential timelines slamming into an inescapable Fact: Jack.

Jack, who had walked Martha to the exit. She was going to get some food.

The Doctor turned his head a fraction.

Jack came over and to stand next to him. They looked at each other in silence for a moment.

It didn't take quite as much effort as it had at first, looking directly at Jack. Still, his eyes kept wanting to move away from the wrongness.

"May be a long night. Maybe catch a nap," the Doctor said eventually.

"I don't sleep much these days. Don't need to, any more."

"Ah." The Doctor grimaced. Silence descended.

Jack threw him a wry grin and opened his vortex manipulator, checking the readings for the umpteenth time, and the Doctor started poking at the laptop again. They said nothing more.

~*~

The _Valiant_ was a marvel. Certainly for this day and age - not surprising that the Master had had a hand in the designs. Even with retro-tech like this he was brilliant.

They'd arrived on the aircraft carrier with less than two hours until the scheduled first contact with the Toclafane; it would take the Master at least an hour to get here by conventional means.

Some time to get ready, then.

The Doctor pondered letting his companions in on his plan. Nah, not yet. Soon, though.

They let themselves into what seemed to be empty crew quarters, and Jack showed them the basics of the ship's layout. His vortex manipulator was still connected to the Torchwood mainframe - and Torchwood apparently knew everything, even UNIT business.

_Torchwood_. The Doctor grimaced.

"Be right back," Martha announced after a while and stood up, making a vague gesture in the direction of the door.

Jack nodded. "Be careful."

She grinned at him without humour and went out into the corridor, presumably to the bathroom next door.

The Doctor leaned back in his seat and looked at Jack with hooded eyes, trying to ignore his time sense, to only see with his eyes. Finally, he had to ask. "Torchwood. Really?"

The sudden tensing in Jack's body was quite visible. "Do you really trust me that little?" The moment the words were out, he winced. His eyes strayed to the side. He obviously hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"Nah," the Doctor dismissed the ridiculous question. "Has nothing to do with trust." Except that it did, of course, and Jack knew it perfectly well. He looked down, tugging his earlobe. "Don't think - it's not that." He shook himself. "You know me. 's just how I am."

Jack raised both eyebrows. The Doctor wondered just what he saw when he looked at him, at a Time Lord. Humans, so limited – they hardly ever could see beyond the surface contradictions.

Not that it mattered now.

There was another Time Lord now. And not just any Time Lord: the _Master_. The Archangel Network still masked his presence, of course, but he was _there_.

Eventually Jack gave a wry smile. "They're good people," he said quietly.

The Doctor merely shrugged.

"What do you want from me?" Jack asked, his voice tight. "Apart from never having to see me again, I mean. What the hell do you expect?"

"Don't expect anything." He turned away, shutting Jack down with the blatant lie. This was hardly the time for this kind of discussion.

Not that it was ever the time.

Jack sighed and turned away as well. For a long time they simply sat silently, not looking at each other.

"That was cruel, you know," Jack finally muttered, almost but not quite under his breath.

Yes. Yes, it was.

Still, the Doctor pretended he didn't understand. He looked at Jack with all the fake confusion he could muster. "What?"

Jack looked over his shoulder at the door. "_When you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist?_" he quoted.

Oh. _That._ He should have guessed Jack wouldn't complain on his own behalf.

"You might as well have slapped her in the face," Jack added quietly.

_And you_, the Doctor thought but didn't say. Jack, of course, would never bring that up. He'd flirt like the devil till the end of the universe, but he'd never say a word about this. Not that the Doctor could bring himself to say anything either.

All he said in the end was, "I love Martha."

"No," Jack corrected. "She loves you. You just _like_ her, and you're not even showing her that much."

"Jack Harkness, defender of underappreciated women?" Exasperated sarcasm: a reflex.

Jack just looked at him. That wasn't even disappointment, only sadness and resolution in his eyes. "Martha deserves better."

The Doctor looked down. "Suppose she does." _And so do you._ But this wasn't about deserving anything. Jack was ... what he was. And the Master was out there ... a miracle all by itself.

And Jack and Martha? Better for them if he distanced himself.

He knew he could rely on them one way or another; they were better than that. But he _would_ save the Master, and they ... They'd never understand.

He decided the truth made the best weapon.

"You asked what I want from you. Do you really want to know?" A challenge.

There'd be no taking it back if he said it.

A brief flicker of surprise; then Jack nodded, a short, jerky movement. The Doctor could see the apprehension in his eyes, but Jack wasn't standing down.

He admitted it. He said the words. "Jack. Right now, I don't want anything from you. I want the Master."

Jack flinched. For a moment, pain was clear in his eyes. Then he took a deep breath, and it was as if he'd never reacted visibly to this bit of judicious cruelty. He nodded slowly, as if he'd just confirmed something for himself. "I won't ask again."

They said nothing more until Martha returned.

~*~

**Part II: Silence of the Drums**

It wasn't until after it was all over, until Jack had left and Martha had gone to visit her family, that he got a chance to stop and think. To realise just how badly he'd miscalculated.

He'd lost everything.

Jack and Martha he'd pushed away himself, for the sake of the Master. It had seemed a reasonable trade at the time.

But the Master had left him. Had refused to regenerate, had made his death into his final triumph.

There was nothing left.

Jack had walked away. And Martha would leave him.

Oh yes, she'd probably come with him again for a trip or five, but nevertheless he'd already lost her. She'd learned something during that year walking the earth, and it was that she deserved better. He could see it in her eyes.

His own fault.

Not that it ever ended differently, no matter what he did. Reinette, not even given a chance to say good-bye. Rose, losing her grip on the magna clamp, being ripped away ... Everyone who had come before.

Of course, he'd sent Rose away first, too, just like he'd run from Jack, then pushed Martha and Jack away, hard as he could, thinking it a kindness.

Perhaps it had been.

Perhaps he was better off alone.

And yet ...

A year on that ship for him and Jack, and he'd never given up on his plan, never given up on the Master, and despite everything the Master had done he'd still believed it worth it.

It would have been, if only it had _worked_.

Now everything was silent, in his own mind and in the TARDIS. Even his ship's mental presence was hushed, dimmed somehow. Still recovering from the perversion the Master had forced on her.

Too much silence.

Involuntarily his mind sought out the one thing that was always there, grating and impossible as it was.

The thing that went against each and every instinct he possessed, the jarring, grating _Wrongness_ of it setting his teeth on edge.

Well. Why not?

Besides, even the wrongness was almost a relief, like the pain of pinching yourself to know you're awake: something that wouldn't, would _never_ be silenced.

The Doctor could deal with that for a little while.

He couldn't take back what he'd said, but he owed the man. Owed him _something_.

~*~

He caught up with Jack the same day he'd left him, just stepping out of an alley right in front of him, looking at him with a grin.

"Captain."

Jack stopped dead in his tracks. "Doctor?" His's voice was incredulous.

"Come along now." The Doctor put a hand on Jack's shoulder and pushed him into the narrow, windowless alley.

Jack seemed a bit annoyed, being pushed like that, but went willingly enough.

The Doctor looked down, rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck.

Well. Time to face the Fact. He looked up.

"You were wrong," he said. "Just something you should know. What you said, before all this? You were wrong." He raised his eyebrows in challenge.

Jack's brow was furrowing, irritation and confusion warring with each other in his expression. "You're going to have to be more specific than that."

The Doctor looked down. "I don't." That came out quickly - more quickly than he'd meant to. Then, in a rush, the words tumbling out almost against his will, "You were wrong; I don't. I _don't_ never want to see you again. I never did. I just can't ..." He looked Jack in the eye then.

As a young boy looking into the Untempered Schism, he'd seen a dizzying, incomprehensible kaleidoscope, sensory overload for his still undeveloped time sense. He'd had to learn to read the patterns, see the harmonies and disharmonies, impose some sort of order - to make sense of the vastness of the vortex, to refine his crude understandings.

He wondered if he could learn to integrate this as well.

Well. Unlikely, but he owed it to Jack to try.

"It's hard, being this close to you. I can feel it all the time, you know. What you are. It echoes in every timeline. It shouldn't be; it's _wrong_. I look at you but my eyes don't want to see. And there's no escaping from it."

Jack's expression was closed. "That why you keep pushing me away?" He scowled. "When you're not running away, that is."

The Doctor looked away for a second, trying to find the right answer to that. But he'd already admitted too much; deflection wouldn't fly. He grimaced. "In part," he admitted.

Jack nodded, grimly. "In part." But he made no move to leave.

The Doctor's lips pressed together in a thin line. Then, "Do you trust me?"

Now it was Jack's turn to look away. "Do you really need an answer to that?"

"You shouldn't, you know."

"Never been good at doing what I should." Grim humour.

The Doctor smiled at that. "I don't suppose you have." He looked away again. "I'd like to try something." He bit his lip; suppressed a shudder.

When nothing more was forthcoming, Jack asked, "Yes?"

The Doctor hesitated. "Suppose you're right," he said, finally. "Suppose I'm just prejudiced." He stepped closer. Cupped Jack's cheek in his hand. Jack flinched back as if struck. The Doctor followed, brushed his fingers across Jack's temple, burrowed them in his hair. Held Jack's head as he brought their mouths together, his lips pressing firmly against Jack's.

He'd lost too much already.

The Master was dead.

Jack remained motionless for several long moments; then he practically ripped himself away. "What the hell?"

For a first kiss, that was rather a disaster. The Doctor scowled. "You said you trust me."

"I did, didn't I?" Jack shook his head; the emotion on his face could only be called fond exasperation.

The Doctor bristled. "Well?" he demanded.

Jack took a deep, shuddering breath. "Fine. Fine, all right." And he looked at the Doctor with something that almost approached a smirk. "Careful what you start, though."

Cheeky. Oh, he'd _show_ him.

When the Doctor's tongue sought entrance to his mouth, Jack's lips were soft, pliable. His mouth was almost shockingly hot, and the almost electric shock that went through the Doctor's body when their tongues touched was echoed in Jack's reaction.

When they came apart this time, Jack was breathless, and the Doctor enjoyed the feeling of biological superiority.

For a long moment, they looked each other directly in the eye. It didn't seem quite so hard now. Then Jack's eyes shuttered. "Desensitisation?" he asked quietly.

"You could say that."

Arousal warred with resignation in Jack's eyes. In the end, warmth took over. Love. "All right."

Jack had always loved generously. Perhaps too generously.

"But not just that." The Doctor swallowed the lump in his throat. "Can't run away from something if you don't know it exists." Admitting even that much hurt. But he forced himself to continue. "Wouldn't bother to run if I didn't _want_."

He hadn't known he was going to say it until the moment he did.

And then he could see it, could watch it happening: something breaking open in Jack's eyes, all that careful self-control shattering as the unattainable proved to be not quite so unattainable after all.

_Oops._

The Doctor found himself with his back pressed to a dirty brick wall, Jack's body pressed against him as closely as their clothes would allow, his face framed in Jack's large hands and Jack's tongue plundering his mouth.

His erection was straining against his trousers.

Well. No turning back now.

Anyway, the angle was all wrong. What if ... He hitched up a leg around Jack's hips, pulling him closer until - oh yes. That was it. Glorious friction. He groaned into Jack's mouth, and Jack jerked against him in reaction.

Their mouths came apart. Jack's breath was coming in short, gasping pants now, hot air tickling against the Doctor's ear, almost impossibly arousing. The constant tingle of Jack's impossible nature against the Doctor's nerves, the faint taste of artron energy on his skin changed nothing about that.

Jack looked around frantically and spotted the low window sill a few yards down the alley where old windows had been bricked just as the Doctor did. They looked at each other, grinned, and then they were half pushing, half pulling each other over.

Then Jack lifted the Doctor up.

The Doctor was too aroused to be bothered about being manhandled like that; he merely pulled Jack between his legs, urgent and needy.

Jack pressed between his thighs, Jack's arms wrapped around him ... oooh, yes. Delicious, wonderful pressure.

He gripped the edge of the window sill for leverage. They rutted against each other, out of control, and he didn't mind one bit.

Not one bit.

Jack, being only human, lost it first, coming with a strangled moan, collapsing against the Doctor's body.

The Doctor poked him with a pointy finger, rubbed himself against Jack's spent body. "Oi!"

Jack laughed into the Doctor's ear, breathlessly, then slid to his knees, a boneless, well-practiced move. He made short work of the Doctor's fly, and the Doctor hissed with relief as his cock sprang free. Jack winked up at him, then swallowed him down without further ado, human heat engulfing him.

The Doctor let out a surprised cry that turned into a deep groan as Jack's talented tongue made short work of his remaining composure. His hand came to rest on Jack's head, first just guiding, then gripping – probably painfully, but Jack made no complaint.

The heat, Jack's lips and tongue and teeth, Jack's impossible nature – it all only added to the thrill.

He thrust into Jack's mouth, once, twice, and spilled himself down Jack's throat, losing himself in the explosive sensation. In Jack.

After a moment Jack let the Doctor's cock slip from his lips – he moaned a little at the loss – and licked his lips with a grin.

The Doctor sat back on the window sill, breathing deeply, trying to regain his composure. Jack stood up smoothly and came to sit next to him. He pulled out a handkerchief, reached over and tucked the Doctor's cock back into his trousers, tidying him. The Doctor let him. Jack made no move to do anything about his own sticky pants.

They sat in silence for a while.

Their arms were brushing.

"You know why I said it," the Doctor muttered eventually.

Jack's tight expression contrasted strangely with the softness in his eyes. "Doesn't make it any less true."

The Doctor swallowed. "No."

Jack nodded and looked down for a moment. "Honesty. Rare enough from you."

The Doctor's hearts clenched a little, but he said nothing in reply. There really was nothing else to say, was there? Except ...

"It would have been worth it." It would, wouldn't it? He had to believe that.

Jack just looked at him tiredly. He sighed. "Give us some credit next time, all right?"

The Doctor flinched back, stared at him. "You don't mean that."

That couldn't ... That just couldn't be true. Especially not now. Not after everything the Master had done - to them, to their friends and family, to their world. If he'd succeeded, after all of that, how could they have forgiven him?

They shouldn't. They shouldn't; that much he was sure of. Some things had to be unforgivable.

"The hell I don't." Jack grimaced. He looked away. "I'd have given you hell for it. We both would have. But we knew you had to try."

The Doctor swallowed. "Jack ..."

Jack merely looked at him, unwavering. Determined. He couldn't deny the truth he saw in those eyes. There was a strange pressure in his chest all of a sudden, and something behind his eyes was burning. He'd never ...

He swallowed again.

Eventually he nodded, curtly.

The tightness faded from around Jack's eyes.

After a while, Jack nudged him with his elbow and gave him an outrageous wink. "Desensitisation working?" he asked, smirking.

The Doctor had almost forgotten about that part. He pulled his earlobe. Oh yes, in that perfect moment of orgasm it had all crystallised into one, physical and temporal perception, sex and spacetime, human and Fact and _Jack_. One glorious moment when everything had been _just right_.

If only everything else were that simple.

"I don't know," he said, tapping his nose with a finger, miming careful thought. "Insufficient data." He hopped down from the window sill, held a hand out to Jack. Tried a smile. "I suppose we're going to have to keep working at it."


End file.
